Goophone has always been forward thinking . With new design, this new Goophone i6 Plus you have never seen it. Goophone i6 Plus is super slim body, Because of the better processor and flash, so Goophone i6 Plus feels solid and smooth operating experience by your hand.

They even have a corporate video showing their dust-free workshop and “fully automatic production assembly line with modern equipment”. Definitely putting lots more effort in legitimising their work.

Well not Apple but an Apple Watch look-alike that hailed from China. Karissa Bell from Mashable managed to get her hand on one for the princely price of US$27.

The watch’s screen only displays when it’s turned on, and many of its icons are blatant ripoffs of Apple designs. The pairing process took a few tries, but once connected to my iPhone 6, I was able to make phone calls and play music through the watch. It even vibrates when I get a call.

Say what you will about China’s fake-good industry, but these people are quick to produce these gadgets with aplomb. With China’s smartphone market to reach an estimated size of 422 million in 2014, it is not surprising that companies are quick to churn out look-alikes with much lower specs and prices. Even if they reach only just 1% of the market, that’s already more than 4 million of sales.

We are just seven days into 2015 when we see possibly the first product leak from Apple. According to Mark Gurman from 9to5Mac, they have reliable sources to share Apple’s upcoming redesign of the MacBook Air, including exclusive renderings that show the new designs.

Their sources revealed that for the 2015 MacBook Air, there will be a new 12-inch model with an even slimmer design that is even thinner, lighter and sports almost edge-to-edge keyboard but for it to shave off those extra centimetres, they had to omit full-size USB ports, MagSafe connectors and SD card slots that are prominent in all the current MacBook family. Replacing these is the use of the next generation USB port – USB Type-C that is able to power the laptop and external display – allowing Apple to replace two ports for one. If this is the only port available on the MacBook Air, for current iPhone owners, it might mean buying a new cable just to connect your iOS devices.

There will be a slightly bigger display and perhaps finally getting Retina display as well like the MacBook Pro. It is expected to run Intel’s new Broadwell chips and looking likely for a mid-2015 launch, possibly at WWDC.

A side-to-side comparison of how the leaked 12-inch design and the current 13-inch MacBook Air

I’ve put the rendering of the 12-inch against the current 13-inch MacBook Air and you can see the difference in the bezel, keyboard and position of the speakers and touchpad.

Although the details can still change from now till the launch of the product, it is clear to see how Apple’s constantly willing to sacrifice the norm (full-size USB port, SD card etc) and go for newer technology (USB Type-C specification) just to keep device smaller, lighter and yet doesn’t sacrifice performance.

Do check out 9to5 Mac’s post to see more renderings and more details on what can be found and what was sacrificed to get this new design. This might also be a good time to update your New Year resolution to save for the new MacBook Air Retina…

This is one retail tradition that I’d be overjoyed if we have it here – Fukubukuro Lucky Bag – is a Japanese New Year tradition where retailers will fill bags with random goodies and sell them at a substantial discount.

Apple Japan has been running this tradition ever since their retail stores are opened and this year isn’t any different. Selling at 36,000 yen (about S$400), these Lucky Bags contains products with a total value ranging from S$850 to S$1,700.

Photo from Twitter user @rudoga3

Each bag comes with an Apple TV, a pair of Beats PowerBeats2 wireless in-ear headphones, a special New Year’s edition Mophie power station and a 1,000 yen iTunes Card. For the surprise item, it varies between these four options:

an 11-inch MacBook Air with 128GB SDD, a limited edition Power Support Air Jacket and a Twelve South’s PlugBug World power adaptor

a 16GB iPad Air 2 with Wi-Fi

a 16GB iPad mini 3 with Wi-Fi

a 16GB iPod touch

Watch the action at the Apple Store Nagoya Sakae below:

I would definitely queue up early just to have a chance to get one of the goodie bags.

Apple’s ad for this year’s holiday season is called The Song – a follow-up to last year’s video Misunderstood. A simple, heartfelt video where the focus is on the people, the music and not the products.

A month back Tim Cook and his team introduced the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch to the world which was streamed all across the world. Besides having to struggle through streaming problems, the whole keynote felt rushed and detached.

Jong-Moon Kim wrote in his blog – Jiggity’s Essay – about how he felt there were obvious weaknesses in how that keynote was presented, especially when it was a momentous event when Apple gets involved in a new product category. He analysed the major sections of the keynote and most of his observations were spot on. What came after was even better – he imagined how Steve Jobs might have done this keynote.

This stage holds a special place in my heart. Did you know this is the exact stage I introduced the original Macintosh? (Cheers)

Jobs: Jeez, look at that head of hair. (Laughter)

Fifteen years later, it was where Apple was reborn with the iMac. (Cheers)

Jobs: Each time we presented on this stage, it marked the start of a new, remarkable era for Apple.

Thankfully, there is a way to downgrade back to iOS 8.0 as long you are with your Mac or PC that has iTunes installed.

iOS 8.0.1 was supposed to fix bugs that prevented HealthKit apps from working correctly and problems with custom keyboards working properly. It also improves the reliability of Reachability on the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus and a few other bugs.

How it managed to pass through different levels of checks and reviews to be released and then introducing more critical bugs baffles many.

Between the iPhone design team facing #bendgate and iOS team with this – who is feeling worse?

In comparison, Apple shipped 9 million iPhone 5s and 5c last year and 5 million iPhone 5 during the first week.

We don’t have specific numbers for the sales of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in Singapore but at this point of time, the Apple Online Store is still not receiving new orders while most of the shops of the three telcos in Singapore have seen brisk sales of the iPhone 6 while none of them are having any iPhone 6 Plus for sale.

M1 and SingTel have respectively set up a page to show the stock status of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in their stores. However we have not seen a similar page for Starhub Shops at this time.

Based on a quick scan of the stock status, Singaporeans prefer:
* In terms of color, we prefer Space Grey, followed by Gold and then Silver
* In terms of capacity, most chose 64GB, followed by 16GB and then the 128GB

If you are hoping to get one from the Telcos, be prepared to wait for a few hours especially if you choose the more popular shops in major shopping malls. You might also want to call the respective shops in advance just to gauge the crowd level before heading down.

For those who don’t mind paying more for a non-contract iPhone 6, do constantly refresh the Apple Online Store to see if the next batch is available.

I just received my iPhone 6 Plus 64GB in the “Ah Beng Gold” color this afternoon and going through restoring. Will share my observation of the “big-ass” iPhone 6 Plus in a future post.

The creativity in this music video is simply awesome. 14 screens were shot in one continuous take – with six iPhones, four iPads, three MacBooks and one small iPod – to produce this 2 minutes plus video for the song Knock Knock (iTunes download link).